The Relational Politics of Aesthetics: An Introduction

Towards a new historical context for the understanding of cultural policy, or, the common enterprise of French Surrealist André Breton and Swedish Minister of Culture Ragnar Edenman

“…As Hylland and Bjurström (2018) note, the impossibility of a cultural policy free from aesthetic and artistic discrimination is particularly evident with respect to subsidy policies. The authors of the Public Lending Right do not dissimulate their paternalistic view of the reading habits of the Swedish population.…”

“…From the perspective elaborated above, the use of art informing and elaborated in Edenman's speech sits firmly within the aesthetic tradition. However, by picking up the challenge of modern art to cultural policy indicated by Hylland and Bjurström (2018) -that what art is and what it is good for cannot be taken for granted after the appearance of modern arta decisive mutation of the notion of art can be discerned. The mutation evolves around the passive-active dichotomy and the concept of artistic freedom.…”

“…These highlight a displacement of the notion of art, which suggests that Swedish cultural policy constitutes a break with the aesthetic tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth century to which the Nordic model of cultural policy, as well as cultural policies in other liberal democracies, are often referred (cf. Frenander 2014;Hylland and Bjurström 2018;Bennett 1997;Urfalino 2010).…”